10/2/14: No Trades, Protecting my Pips... Commitment to Excellence

Coming into today, I was basically at my goal for the week.  The goal for this week was to be up 25 to 35 pips.  After yesterday, I was up 33.6 pips.  My debate coming for today and tomorrow was whether to continue trading.  The more conservative members of the Fx365i senior leadership would argue against trading and the more aggressive members would say to trade when you see good opportunity.  I told myself I would only trade if I saw something I felt extremely strongly about.

I did see a couple of trade set ups I felt good about today, but I chose to be conservative and did not trade.  This is proving to be both good and bad.  The good news is that I am still at my goal for the week.  As you may know, this is the first time in a month I have not been down dozens of pips, so this is a great thing!  So, what is the bad side of it?

The bad side is that I'm wondering if I'm still spinning from the severe emotional beatings I took over the past month (self-inflicted as they may have been).  If I'm seeing good setups, why am I not taking the trades?  On Tuesday, I didn't take a trade that set up perfectly and I regretted it.  On Wednesday, I took a similar trade and it paid me 22.9 pips.  The two trade setups I saw today both went very strongly in the direction I expected.  I could potentially have pulled around 80 pips on them.  So how do I continue to grow as a trader at this moment?

In order to keep my mind right and keep improving, my take on all of this is:

1. I am really happy with how I am seeing the market and beginning to understand the amazing new Smart Money Profile (SMP) software.
2. There is nothing wrong with being extremely conservative once I have reached my goal for the week.  If I was up 50 for the week, maybe then I would feel like I was playing with house money and could afford to take a potential 10-12 pip loss and still be very happy with the week.  However, if I took that loss now, I would not meet my target for the week.
3. I have decided I am absolutely not going to trade tomorrow.  I know it is going to be maddening if I see an easy entry and it runs for a monster trade, but we all know the GBP/AUD runs all the time and there will be more trades next week and beyond.  I will be watching closely in order to stay in tune with the market, but I will not have my rate indicator up.

Speaking of continuing to improve, I made the time last night to read Chapter 4 of The Forex Mindset, aka "The Book."  The commitment to excellence (no, not a Raiders reference) is such a phenomenal concept.  The habits we create on a daily basis and the small decisions to do the right thing on the little tiny stuff in our lives make a huge difference.  The chapter starts with quote by Aristotle.  I don't have it in front of me, but the gist is that you don't do the right thing because you have virtue, but rather you have virtue because you consistently do the right thing.  Continually striving for excellence and continual improvement, in all facets of our lives is not only a noble goal, but will also make us indefinitely better traders.

To everyone who is planning to trade non-farm payroll tomorrow, be careful.  It's a great day to lose a boatload of pips - especially if you start getting emotional or are trading a higher lot size than you are ready for.  Ask me how I know.  Good luck tomorrow and I can't wait to start trading again next week.